-The Times of India NEW DELHI: About a quarter of India's districts are witnessing mass protests over land acquisition issues according to a study. It identified 252 land conflicts spread over 165 districts, spanning practically all states of the country, in 2013-14. This is an increase of over 40% over 2012 when an earlier study had recorded 177 disputes in 130 districts. This incendiary situation is the reason behind the bitter debate...

-Economic and Political Weekly While the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act 2001 is a progressive piece of legislation that recognises farmers' rights to seed, it demands payment of an annual maintenance fee by the farmers to protect the varieties which they have been cultivating and conserving for years, only because these varieties have been brought under legal protection through national legislation. Parameswaran Prajeesh (prajeesh@mssrf.res.in) is a researcher with the...

-Down to Earth Tribal groups raise concerns regarding delay in recognition of Community Forest Rights Accusing the environment ministry of trying to deprive forest dwellers of their rights, Adivasi Janajati Adhikar Mancha (AJAM) said dilution of the "consent" clause of Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006 was "highly unconstitutional". AJAM also said the environment ministry was "interfering and encroaching upon the affairs of MoTA (Ministry of Tribal Affairs) with the sole objective of...

-IANS New Delhi: Claiming that the government has failed to safeguard the interests of the marginalised, National Commission for Scheduled Castes chairperson P.L. Punia on Wednesday called for advancing awareness about a web-based monitoring tool called ATM that tracks atrocities against Dalits and the tribals across India. Addressing a training workshop to promote the use of Atrocity Tracking and Monitoring (ATM) System, Punia said: "The ATM should be the medium to inform...

-Free Press Journal Seasonal agriculture is the mainstay of food as well as livelihood around here, so the local communities, predominantly Dalits and tribals rely heavily on their entitlements under the Public Distribution System (PDS), a government-sponsored food security net for the poor and marginalised populations, writes Dilnaz Boga. Pandarigota is a quaint village with a population of 305, tucked away in the dense forests of Korchi block in eastern Maharashtra's Gadchiroli...